Page 1790 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2011
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It is interesting that the position for ACT public servants is almost the mirror image of that. The majority of ACT public servants are in B grade or C grade, and indeed some in D grade, accommodation. This government, for a variety of reasons, including what we see as a commitment to our public service to be accommodated appropriately, have been investigating for a number of years the construction of an ACT government office. We have a number of buildings now which we own. Indeed, I refer most particularly to Callam offices, Macarthur offices and Dame Pattie, each of them ageing, each of them in need of a significant retrofit to bring them up to appropriate green-star NABERS ratings. Indeed, the Callam offices, I think on last advice, require somewhere in the order of $56 million worth of repairs and retrofit.
Indeed, through the work that we have done, we have also looked at how best to co-locate most particularly administrative staff to get efficiencies to better drive the performance of the ACT public service. We have looked at the extent or the capacity, through the cost-benefit analyses we pursued, at the savings to the bottom line, to the budget, to the people of the ACT, were we to relocate the majority of our administrative staff into a centralised office. And the savings are significant. I think the issue that the Liberal Party has not yet grasped is that the advice to the government through this process is that we would achieve savings, operational savings, of in the order of $19 million a year, ongoing. $19 million a year would be the savings in rent, electricity, utilities et cetera. So certainly we invest, but we invest to save, and in doing so achieve a whole range of other benefits. (Time expired.)
MR SPEAKER: Mr Coe, a supplementary?
MR COE: Chief Minister, aside from the half a billion dollar office building, you are also moving 500 public servants to Gungahlin. Which departments and offices will be moving to Gungahlin?
MR STANHOPE: I thank Mr Coe for the question. I am sure Mr Coe applauds the decision that the ACT government have taken to ensure a major office development within the Gungahlin town centre. We are very pleased to have been able to make that decision. At this stage, the government anticipate that we will go to the market sometime this year.
The final details in relation to all aspects of the proposal have not yet been made but I am sure that members and certainly residents of Gungahlin are interested in this most significant decision that the government have taken. We will devise a process. We will call for expressions of interest. We will begin the process of ensuring that there is appropriate, A-grade, environmentally sustainable accommodation for upwards of 500 ACT public servants.
The number is not yet finally identified but certainly they will be public servants pursuing duties that are within the cohort that we have identified as most appropriately located within the ACT. But, in relation to the identity of the full cohort of public servants, we have not decided on the final make-up of the full cohort.
MR SMYTH: A supplementary, Mr Speaker.
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